Wed 29 Sep 2010
Down with “Generation Gaga”
Posted by Neil Howe under 4th Turning (Crisis), Baby Boomer, Media, Millennial, Pop Culture
View CommentsI have missed (first-wave Boomer (born 1943-1960), radical feminist) Camille Paglia. She’s so pungent, so smart. And now I see this: Her total put-down of Lady Gaga and her entire generation—by extension, we would have to say, of her entire Millennial (born 1982-200?).
Paglia’s emphasis on Gaga’s essential a-sexuality reminds me of that famous Rolling Stone expose of the Millennial libido a few years ago, “The Young and Sexless.” Gaga doesn’t say a lot that’s interesting or coherent, but she has commented several times that young people can be happy with or without sex. She is, as Paglia observes, simply indifferent to the question.
What rankles many Boomers like Paglia is the fundamental sense that Millennials show no evidence of experiencing life with the same clarity, passion, depth, authenticity, and desire to break through and outrage as older generations once did. Paglia is especially bothered by Gaga’s inability to articulate a single coherent feeling or idea—and her fans’ total comfort with that. Note Paglia uses Madonna (b. 1958) as the positive Boomer foil.
Critics compare her to the outrageous staging of “glam rock” bands like David Bowie in the ‘70s. But I don’t really see much resemblance.
Anyone care to guess what role, if any, Gaga will play in defining Millennial pop culture?
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10/02/2010
Down with “Generation Gaga” | Lifecourse Blog
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